The Coming War Against Iran - Part 14

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by Daan de Wit

Bush
and Cheney have less than two years to go in their current role
and want to go down in the history books as the heroes of the Pax
Americana, as the men who managed to conquer the Middle East and its
oil, as the men who took full-spectrum dominance seriously, while in their own country booking successes through exorbitant profits
for the military-industrial complex and the realization of radical
legislation. The prelude was long and the path was full of obstacles,
but the goal of a third great war - a war with Iran - is increasingly
within sight. Dan Plesch in The Guardian sums it up in one sentence: 'All the signs are that Bush is planning for a neocon-inspired military assault on Iran'.

'Americans don't have much time to realize this and to act before it is
too late. Bush's "surge" speech last Wednesday night makes it
completely clear that his real purpose is to start wars with Iran and
Syria before failure in Iraq brings an end to the
neoconservative/Israeli plan to establish hegemony over the Middle
East', writes
Paul Craig Roberts, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Ronald
Reagan. 'Commenting about the briefing on MSNBC after Bush's nationwide
address, NBC's Washington bureau chief Tim Russert said "there's a
strong sense in the upper echelons of the White House that Iran is
going to surface relatively quickly as a major issue â€” in the country
and the world â€” in a very acute way"', writes Robert Parry.

Given the presence of four American submarines off the coast of Iran, Eduard Baltin, former commander of the Russian fleet, reasons that the U.S. is planning to attack Iran. Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich, himself a presidential candidate for 2008, says:
'"The President is clearly trying to provoke Iran," he said, adding
that the Bush administration is "treading on the thinnest ice it has
ever been on".' ING Wholesale Banking warns in their report
[PDF] Attacking Iran that the financial markets could be in for 'a
heavy shock' in the event of a preemptive attack on Iran. The report is
practical as well; under the heading 'Top trades in the event of an
attack on Iran', advice for buying and selling can be found, such as:
'Buy Oil and Gold, Sell industrial commodities'. Meanwhile the Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is letting it be known
that he disposes over the same devotion as his adversary Bush: '"Today,
with the grace of God, we have gone through the arduous passes and we
are ready for anything in this path," state-run television quoted
Ahmadinejad as saying Thursday'.

Speculation over the beginning of the attack on Iran

In reference to the American raid on an Iranian consulate in Irbil,
Northern Iraq, in which five Iranians were taken into custody, John Pike of Global Security points to the presence of two aircraft carriers in the Gulf (other warships are steaming in that direction) and to the surge-speech
by George W. Bush, in which he announced that Patriot missiles would be
deployed in member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC),
like Kuwait and Saudi-Arabia. 'Iran has denounced the Patriot
deployment as part of U.S. plan to turn Arab countries into a front
line of protection for Israel', writes
Associated Press. Bush: 'We will interrupt the flow of support from
Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing
advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.' Pike speaking to
CNN: '[...] It's looks to me like the United States is, at least,
raising its capabilities in preparation for possible military
confrontation with Iran."' Pike considers it a strong possibility that
this confronation will take place this year, and has even published a 'Countdown time line'
with potential dates on which an attack is likely. In Pike's opinion,
February of 2007 is a genuine possibility for a strike on Iran.
February is also the month in which Ahmadinejad will be announcing progress with their nuclear program, and will also mark the end of the sixty-day period given to Iran in UN resolution 1713 [PDF] to bring an end to their nuclear program. On February 21st, the IAEA will
deliver a report on Iran, something which Israel and the U.S. will
again be able to seize upon when pointing to Iranian negligence.

The editor-in-chief of the Arab Times is expecting
an attack before April: 'U.S. might launch a military strike on Iran
before April 2007, Kuwait-based daily Arab Times released on Sunday
said in a report. The report, written by Arab Times' Editor-in-chief
Ahmed al-Jarallah citing a reliable source, said that the attack would
be launched from the sea, while Patriot missiles would guard all Arab
countries in the Gulf.' The Arab Times is basing its opinion on only one source. ING Wholesale Banking writes
[PDF] in the preface to their report on Iran: 'We outline a scenario in
which Israel attacks 5 or 6 of Iran's nuclear facilities in late
February or March 2007, with strikes that may be completed within
hours, days or at most weeks.'

What could also hasten an attack on Iran are two divergent realities, namely that the announced Tor-M1 air defense system is now being delivered to Iran, and that Bush's comrade-in-arms Tony Blair will be stepping down this year. In a recent announced that he wants to make more money available for the British army.

Banks putting Iran under pressure

The latest news doesn't portend anything good, but those who read
between the lines can see that other preparations are also being made.
Comparable to an extent with the No Fly Zone War,
which preceded the latest war against Iraq, Iran is being softened up
in advance: 'While people are concerned with Iraq and the gathering
armada in the Persian Gulf, United States has been quietly carrying out
a not so covert economic war against Iran', writes
Dr. Abbas Bakhtiar. 'The attack on Iranian economy started in earnest
in early 2006. United States began putting considerable pressure on
international banks and financial institutions to cut their ties with
Iran.

Countries also were pressured to reduce their
economic contact with Iran. [...] Governments, companies and financial
institutions are under intense pressure to terminate all dealings with
Iran. But so far Iran has managed to sustain, albeit with great
difficulty, its oil industry and financial institutions functioning.'
Little by little banks are severing their ties with Iran: '"The reason:
oil transactions are in dollar assets. To the extent that any banks
have to convert their assets into dollars, they must use U.S.
facilities and can be subject to U.S. sanctions", says
Stuart Eizenstat, former American Under Secretary of State for
Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs to Michael Hirsh, who writes:
'Recently the Iranians have countered, threatening to do business in
Euros, but one by one, European banks are falling under U.S. pressure
as well. On Wednesday The Wall Street Journal reported that
Commerzbank, Germany's second largest, will stop handling dollar
transactions for Iranâ€”making it the last European bank to agree to do
so.'

Anti-Iranian propaganda

An argument
often used against Iran concerns the aggressive pronouncement by its
leader Mahmoud Ahmadinjehad that he would like to wipe Israel off the
map. Jonathan Steel, columnist for The Guardian, has subjected this
statement and the translations thereof to further investigation.
He has inquired with the BBC, among others. Steel: 'As a result of my
inquiry and the controversy generated, they [the BBC] had gone back to
the native Farsi-speakers who had translated the speech from a voice
recording made available by Iranian TV on October. Here is what the
spokesman told me about the "off the map" section: "The monitor has
checked again. It's a difficult expression to translate. They're under
time pressure to produce a translation quickly and they were searching
for the right phrase. With more time to reflect they would say the
translation should be "eliminated from the page of history". [...] So
there we have it. Starting with Juan Cole, and going via the New York
Times' experts through MEMRI to the BBC's monitors, the consensus is
that Ahmadinejad did not talk about any maps. He was, as I insisted in
my original piece, offering a vague wish for the future.' Steel makes
it clear that Ahmadinejad expressed a wish for a different government
in Israel, not the destruction of Israel; 'He was not making a military threat'. The Jewish community in Iran isn't itching to flee either: only 152 of the 25,000 responded to calls from the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.

Then there is also the statement by Ahmadinejad in which he denies the
Holocaust, that the Holocaust would be a myth. Kein Krieg! checked into it and it appears
that Ahmadinejad is critical of the exploitation of the Holocaust. So
the subject of his feelings on this is not the Holocaust itself, but
rather what he sees as the exploitation thereof. From his statements it
would be more proper to infer that he acknowledges the Holocaust - not
that he denies it. This is the complete inverse of his words, which was
corrected by Kein Krieg!, but has already done its propagandistic job in the minds of the public at large. And speaking of propaganda: 'The American Jewish Committee took out a full page ad
[PDF] in The New York Times showing Iran in the center of concentric
circles, including all the Middle East and beyond, asking: "Can anyone
within range of Iran's missiles feel safe?"' Ex-Premier and leader of
the Likud party Benjamin Netanyahu:
"The year is 1938 and Iran is Germany," said Netanyahu, reiterating his
message from last month in Los Angeles.' Whereby it was noted:
'Except that 2003 was also 1938, when Natanyahu said the same thing
about Iraq. [...] And while he's calling Mahmoud Ahmadinjad Hitler
these days, in the past he had bestowed that honor on Saddam Hussein
and Yasser Arafat.'

Cheney is operating on the same wavelength as Netanyahu: '"So the
threat that Iran represents is growing," he [Cheney] said, in words
reminiscent of how he once built a case against Mr. Hussein', writes The New York Times with subtlety.

Criticism of the neoconservative plans for Iran

Should it come to war, then the advice
of Paul Craig Roberts, the former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury
for Ronald Reagan, could end up being heeded. He is pleading for the
impeachment of Bush as a way to prevent the war. Democratic Congressman
Dennis Kucinich, a presidential candidate for 2008, is threatening impeachment if Bush declares war on Iran. The criticism by Roberts is in line with that of Republican Rep. Ron Paul, who warns
that Bush could order a 'Gulf of Tonkin type situation', i.e. a
false-flag operation, as an excuse to attack Iran. The Republican
Senator Chuck Hagel:
'"I will do everything I can to stop the president's policy as he
outlined it (last) Wednesday night"', who together with two Democrats
and a Republican has introduced a resolution opposing the plans of President Bush. The White House even dragged Al Qaida into it in order to take the sting out of the criticism. Bush:
'Asked if Congress could stop him from surging 21,500 troops into Iraq,
Bush on 60 Minutes brushed aside Congress as irrelevant. "I fully
understand [the Congress] could try to stop me from doing it. But I've
made my decision. And we're going forward." Asked if he had sole
authority "to put the troops in there no matter what the Congress wants
to do," Bush replied, "In this situation I do, yeah."'

Republican Rep. Walter Jones is determined to carry through on his resolution
H.J. Res 14: 'Our constitution states that--while the Commander in
Chief has the power to conduct wars--only Congress has the power to
authorize war', to which The Nation adds:
'Such a basic expression of the separation of powers should be obvious.
But with the Bush Administration, one never knows.' The Wall Street
Journal sees the seething criticism of Bush's plans as well and writes:
'Of more concern to U.S. lawmakers is the potential that these U.S.
actions against Iran could escalate. Under one possible scenario, U.S.
forces could cross into Iran or Syria in pursuit of suspected
insurgents or their allies, or use alleged Iranian activities inside
Iraq as a pretext for a wider assault on Iran. The fear is that any
such military activities could ignite a wider conflict." The potential
for sparking a wider conflict is great," said Trita Parsi, an Iran
analyst and president of the National Iranian American Council in
Washington. "I think that if we're going for a confrontation with Iran,
the pretext will be Iraq."' Nicholas Burns sees it from a different
perspective: 'Nicholas Burns, undersecretary of state for political
affairs, said the administration is seeking to counter Iranian
provocations across the region as part of a broader strategy. "Iran
needs to learn to respect us," he said. "And Iran certainly needs to
respect American power in the Middle East."'

War against Iran: Bush and Cheney have nothing to lose.

The decisions that Bush announced in his speech followed the replacement
of the generals who were critical of some of the Bush policies, John
Abizaid and George Casey, and John Negroponte, Director of National
Intelligence. This makes it clear that the neoconservative wind, after
all the scandals and the dramatic turn of events in the war in Iraq,
hasn't died down yet. Mainstream critic Keith Olbermann writes [video]:
'Only this president could look out over a vista of 3,008 dead and
22,834 wounded in Iraq, and finally say, "Where mistakes have been
made, the responsibility rests with me" - only to follow that by
proposing to repeat the identical mistake ... in Iran.' He compares
Bush to the drunk who, beaten to the ground, asks who the next one is
that wants a beating.

Bush and Cheney are again
determined to defy the criticism in order to carry out an almost
endless War against Terrorism: '"This is an existential conflict,"
Cheney said. "It is the kind of conflict that's going to drive our
policy and our government for the next 20 or 30 or 40 years. We have to
prevail and we have to have the stomach for the fight long term', says
Cheney. War is not a means but an end in itself. Insurgents in Iraq
aren't the problem, but those who oppose the war certainly are.

But those critics are out of the way now: The critical generals have
been replaced and the voice of the people along with the the opinions of the soldiers in Iraq are being ignored; discussions with Iran and Syria are being rejected;
Patriot missiles are on their way and could intercept an Iranian
counterattack following an Israeli and/or American attack; the warships
in the Gulf could respond to these attacks by bombing Iraq with full
force; the announced troop escalation in Iraq could eliminate Iran's
potential trump card - attacks on Americans in and around the Iraqi
Green Zone; the Bush administration and the government of Prime
Minister Olmert
(following the debÃ¢cle in Lebanon) are doing very poorly in the opinion
polls, thus a spectacular attack by Israel, followed by America, could
likewise render spectacular results for the status of both heads of
state. Bush and Cheney have taken a beating, but they have not been
defeated. Moreover, they have nothing to lose.